Elsewhere

This is an actual PGA Championship storyline: "Major championship winners Charl Schwartzel, Rory McIlroy and Darren Clarke are all represented by Andrew 'Chubby' Chandler, an Englishman who runs International Sports Marketing and, despite his outgoing and gregarious nature, is somewhat sheepish about talk of one of his clients completing the 'Chubby Slam.'" [ESPN]

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Malcolm Gladwell gets thin-sliced: "Most people would never imagine or suspect that Malcolm Gladwell, a staff writer for the New Yorker magazine and bestselling author beloved by the NPR crowd, would have ever been a crooked propagandist for big tobacco. And neither did I, at least not until I happened to stumble across an article Gladwell wrote in 1990, while he was working for the Washington Post. Headlined 'Anti-Smoking Efforts May Carry High Price, Studies Say' it was such obvious and shameless pro-tobacco propaganda that I couldn't believe someone of Gladwell's stature put his name to it—or that he hadn't been ashamed enough to scrub it from the WaPo's archives. I was so intrigued by that article and what it might say about one of the most influential corporate writers of our time that I decided spend the past few days combing through Gladwell's published work from the 90's and early 00's, and what I found frankly shocked me: one shameless pro-tobacco article or piece of propaganda after another." [Exiled Online]

When rioting not related to soccer affects soccer: "Tottenham's opening match of the Premier League season against Everton on Saturday has been postponed following disorder in the London neighborhood that sparked trouble across England. There are ongoing safety concerns in the area around the north London club's White Hart Lane stadium, which has seen police resources stretched." [AP]

If the lockout delays the NBA season, Carlos Boozer will injure himself overseas: "'I think as players we have to look at this lockout as an unfortunate challenge, but one that can create other unique and positive opportunities,' he said. 'When I was part of Team USA that won Olympic Gold in Beijing, that experience changed my life in incredible ways. If the NBA season gets delayed or postponed, I plan on using those months to experience something similar to what I did in the summer of 2008. That's why, if the lockout continues, I definitely plan on playing overseas.'" [ESPN]

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The brains behind the blue turf gets bounced: "As Boise State University joins a higher-profile conference under the cloud of alleged NCAA violations and the strain of a growing budget gap between the school and the upper echelon of Division I, the Broncos will move forward without the man who got them there - fired Athletic Director Gene Bleymaier." [Idaho Statesman]

United States Criminal Code > National Football League "Fan Code of Conduct": "A San Diego judge has sided with a Kansas City Chiefs fan who was arrested after he resisted security guards attempting to eject him from a Chiefs-Chargers game at Qualcomm Stadium for using an obscene finger gesture and language." [Los Angeles Times]

Your Gorilla Flinging A Chimp Interlude:

Neither rain nor sleet nor pyro rioters …: "Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore does not expect any more of this weekend's Premier League fixtures to be postponed after Tottenham's clash against Everton was called off." [BBC]

We are all Dave McKenna CLXXVIII: Here's your daily link to Dave McKenna's brilliant "Cranky Redskins Fan's Guide to Dan Snyder," which we'll be posting every day until Snyder's dumbass libel lawsuit gets hurled down an elevator shaft.

Oh, to be rich and able to make reality of any whimsy that may come to mind: "Texas Rangers co-chairman Bob Simpson and wife Janice, along with Jim Hodges and Jackson Yandell of Fort Worth, thought it might be fun to write a song in honor of Rangers skipper Ron Washington. … Because he's Bob Simpson, he done went and got Haggard to perform it, singing lyrics like, "Cloudy days or skies of blue, some you win and some you lose/Losin' makes me sorry, ain't no need to worry/No matter what we love the game, that's the way baseball go." [Dallas Observer]

Merch: Managing editor Tom Scocca and contributing editor Drew Magary have both written books. You can buy Scocca's Beijing Welcomes You: Unveiling the Capital City of the Futurehere, and Magary's The Postmortalhere. Now do it.

Science, as it pertains to male-ass symmetry: "The study that determined that soccer butts are more symmetrical than tennis butts involved "Fifteen male professional soccer players from a first division team of the Spanish Football League, 8 male professional tennis players from the International Tennis Federation tour (Futures and Challengers tournaments) and 6 non-active men." Full credit to whichever La Liga side it was that volunteered to be groped in the name of science. Too bad the study doesn't identify which club it was." [KCKRS]